The long-run and heterogeneous impact of educational policy on crime

Yu BAI; Yanjun LI; Xinyan LIU; Ryuichi TANAKA

doi:10.1016/j.jce.2025.11.003

The long-run and heterogeneous impact of educational policy on crime

Yu BAI
, Yanjun LI
, Xinyan LIU^*
, Ryuichi TANAKA

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Economics

Research output: Journal Publications › Journal Article (refereed) › peer-review

Abstract

This study investigates the heterogeneous long-term effects of compulsory education on property crime by exploiting the staggered implementation of China’s Compulsory Schooling Law (CSL) as a natural experiment. Using a novel panel dataset of criminal court verdicts from the China Judgments Online platform, we find that CSL significantly increased educational attainment and reduced property crime rates in affected cohorts. This reduction is concentrated in low-skill theft crimes, with no significant effect on high-skill fraud crimes, suggesting that basic education primarily deters entry-level criminal activity. These results suggest that displacement effects may play a role, highlighting the importance of considering the differential reach of education policies, such as basic compulsory schooling versus higher education expansions, when designing crime prevention strategies.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	295-311
Number of pages	17
Journal	Journal of Comparative Economics
Volume	54
Issue number	1
Early online date	16 Nov 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2025.11.003
Publication status	Published - Mar 2026

Bibliographical note

We thank the editor, Hongbin Li, and two anonymous referees for valuable comments that greatly improved the paper. We are also grateful to participants at the 2024 China Economic Society (CES) Annual Conference for helpful suggestions. We owe special thanks to Cheng Chen, Shiko Maruyama, Zhaoguang Wang, and Yanfang Su for insightful feedback and support. The authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally to this work.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 Association for Comparative Economic Studies.

Funding

Bai was supported by the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (No. 23K12459); Li was supported by the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (No. 23K12461); Tanaka was supported by the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. 20H05629). All errors are our own.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 4 Quality Education
SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Keywords

Compulsory schooling laws
Education
Crime
Court documents
China

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jce.2025.11.003

Cite this

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title = "The long-run and heterogeneous impact of educational policy on crime",

abstract = "This study investigates the heterogeneous long-term effects of compulsory education on property crime by exploiting the staggered implementation of China{\textquoteright}s Compulsory Schooling Law (CSL) as a natural experiment. Using a novel panel dataset of criminal court verdicts from the China Judgments Online platform, we find that CSL significantly increased educational attainment and reduced property crime rates in affected cohorts. This reduction is concentrated in low-skill theft crimes, with no significant effect on high-skill fraud crimes, suggesting that basic education primarily deters entry-level criminal activity. These results suggest that displacement effects may play a role, highlighting the importance of considering the differential reach of education policies, such as basic compulsory schooling versus higher education expansions, when designing crime prevention strategies.",

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doi = "10.1016/j.jce.2025.11.003",

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AU - TANAKA, Ryuichi

N1 - We thank the editor, Hongbin Li, and two anonymous referees for valuable comments that greatly improved the paper. We are also grateful to participants at the 2024 China Economic Society (CES) Annual Conference for helpful suggestions. We owe special thanks to Cheng Chen, Shiko Maruyama, Zhaoguang Wang, and Yanfang Su for insightful feedback and support. The authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally to this work. Publisher Copyright: © 2025 Association for Comparative Economic Studies.

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N2 - This study investigates the heterogeneous long-term effects of compulsory education on property crime by exploiting the staggered implementation of China’s Compulsory Schooling Law (CSL) as a natural experiment. Using a novel panel dataset of criminal court verdicts from the China Judgments Online platform, we find that CSL significantly increased educational attainment and reduced property crime rates in affected cohorts. This reduction is concentrated in low-skill theft crimes, with no significant effect on high-skill fraud crimes, suggesting that basic education primarily deters entry-level criminal activity. These results suggest that displacement effects may play a role, highlighting the importance of considering the differential reach of education policies, such as basic compulsory schooling versus higher education expansions, when designing crime prevention strategies.

AB - This study investigates the heterogeneous long-term effects of compulsory education on property crime by exploiting the staggered implementation of China’s Compulsory Schooling Law (CSL) as a natural experiment. Using a novel panel dataset of criminal court verdicts from the China Judgments Online platform, we find that CSL significantly increased educational attainment and reduced property crime rates in affected cohorts. This reduction is concentrated in low-skill theft crimes, with no significant effect on high-skill fraud crimes, suggesting that basic education primarily deters entry-level criminal activity. These results suggest that displacement effects may play a role, highlighting the importance of considering the differential reach of education policies, such as basic compulsory schooling versus higher education expansions, when designing crime prevention strategies.

KW - Compulsory schooling laws

KW - Education

KW - Crime

KW - Court documents

KW - China

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U2 - 10.1016/j.jce.2025.11.003

DO - 10.1016/j.jce.2025.11.003

M3 - Journal Article (refereed)

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The long-run and heterogeneous impact of educational policy on crime

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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